


just one night

by one_more_offbeat_anthem



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Bars and Pubs, First Meetings, Late at Night, M/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_more_offbeat_anthem/pseuds/one_more_offbeat_anthem
Summary: Lucas is a psychology doctorate candidate hoping to have just one night of fun and take a break from his responsibilities. The night ends up all but forgotten until the handsome stranger he met reappears in his life in an unexpected way.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Proximity Flash





	just one night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KannaOphelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/gifts).



> I wrote this for the Proximity Flash for KannaOphelia--it's a little different than what I normally post here, but I found the prompts intriguing and it was fun to stretch my legs (or, uh, fingers? hands?) for this one. I hope you enjoy! <3

It was dark in the club, too dark--Lucas couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. That wasn’t important, though. He had come here for a purpose, to get out of his head for just one night. Then it was back to his life.

He wished he could say that he had the kind of job, the kind of obligations, that were supposed to create stress, that he was a high-power executive or a doctor or...anything other than a twenty-something trying to put himself through a psychology doctorate. 

So. One night. 

The music was pulsing, the neon lights blinding while also somehow revealing nothing, the bodies close. Hands groped and grabbed and searched, hands that Lucas both didn’t know and couldn’t see.

After a few drinks, the kind that come in bright, lurid colors with umbrellas and enough alcohol to kill a man, Lucas found himself searching the club for the bathroom. In the dim, uneven lighting, he missed a small set of stairs, only two or three, and found himself tumbling into the arms of a stranger. 

In the neon lights of the club, he could only see the outline of the stranger’s face, the sharp curve of his jaw, a light dusting of stubble across it. But his hands were strong, one on Lucas’ shoulder and the other on his arm, and Lucas let out an involuntary gasp. 

“Watch your step, sweetheart,” the other man said, but without a trace of sarcasm in his voice. 

“Thank you,” Lucas managed to get out before making his way down the steps. He turned right before going into the bathroom to see the man’s face outlined in blue neon light, profiled against the chaos. 

Beautiful.

\-------------------

_ One month later... _

Lucas had never flown on a private jet before, but a rich benefactor had just donated a lot of money to his department and had offered to fly Lucas and his advisor, Dr. Simmons, to a conference. Lucas was to present the early findings of his dissertation research, and despite the fact that his presentation was near the end of the conference, he was already thrumming with nervous energy. 

According to Dr. Simmons, the benefactor, an  _ Adrian Whatley, _ was on the plane, in the cockpit with the pilot. Lucas took his word for it and turned to his book, grateful for the adequate legroom that a private jet afforded. Flying made him nervous (a lot of things made him nervous), so he tried to focus on reading and taking small sips of water. 

About an hour into the flight, drinking all the water got to him, and Lucas found himself walking to the back of the plane to the bathroom. It was the nicest bathroom he’d ever seen on a plane--or anywhere else, for that matter--and he admired the fixtures before heading back out and running smack into someone coming from the other direction.

“Watch your step, sweetheart,” an oddly familiar voice said, and Lucas looked up to see a face he’d seen before, but only in tight silhouette, only in a neon relief. 

“S-sorry,” Lucas said. Seeing the man in full view was overwhelming, his eyes a wide, warm brown, his body tall and lithe, a quirk in his eyebrows, a warm smile playing on his lips.

“It’s no problem,” the man replied, his smile broadening. He stepped back from Lucas, who was suddenly self-conscious of his favorite thrift store jeans and definitely-not-tailored button-down, before sticking out his hand to shake. “Adrian Whatley.” 

“You’re my department’s benefactor,” Lucas said, frowning. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, Lucas, I am. I took a special interest in one of the doctoral students.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Like I said, I had a special interest.” Adrian turned and walked back to the front of the plane, leaving Lucas with his mouth open.

Despite the fact that Adrian stayed in town while the conference was going on, presumably on what he vaguely called “business,” Lucas had no idea what he really did, and they didn’t cross paths again until the last night, after Lucas had given his presentation and gotten a standing ovation (granted, it was a standing ovation led by Dr. Simmons, but an ovation nonetheless), when Lucas decided to grab a drink at one of the city’s trendier bars.

“Am I going to have to catch you again?” A voice next to him said, and Lucas sighed, turning to meet Adrian’s gaze. He would have been lying if he said the other man hadn’t been on his mind all week, but he wasn’t going to admit that. 

“That was one time,” Lucas replied, taking the whiskey he had ordered from the bartender.

“Twice, if you count the plane. I don’t mind catching you when you fall.” Adrian smiled again. “How has the conference been?”

“Good.” Lucas didn’t want to bore Adrian with the latest advances in cognitive behavioral therapy, so he decided to ask a question. “What do you do?” 

“I’m…” Adrian trailed off, staring into space.

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me,” Lucas said quickly, “I just, uh, wondered. What you’d been doing all week. And how you ended up with so much money.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I’m training to be a therapist, I’ve heard a lot of weird things.” Lucas took a sip of his whiskey. 

Adrian ordered them tequila shots.

(Lucas learned later that evening, in Adrian’s hotel room {or, more accurately, in Adrian’s bed}, that Adrian was the young king of a minor European nation. About two years after that, Lucas became the first member of the royal family to also be a doctorate-toting licensed psychologist.)

(A  _ special interest _ , indeed.)


End file.
